How to Build a Strong Healthcare Resume Before Your First Nursing Job
Starting a nursing career can be both an exciting and daunting task for many. We understand that many nursing students have goals and dreams of a career in healthcare and helping patients, and at the same time trying to figure out the steps to take to reach that first nursing job. One place to start is making a strong resume for healthcare jobs before even getting that first job.
A good place to start on your path to your first nursing job is by making your resume the best it can be.
A healthcare resume isn’t just a list of your prior jobs, in school education, and dates of experience. It serves as a strong representation of your skill sets and growing experience as a student and future nurse. A skilled resume highlights a candidate’s prior work experiences that clearly demonstrate their growing level of responsibility, strong communication with patients, families, and staff, as well as their ability to care for patients and provide quality patient services. These types of skills will showcase a hiring manager that you’re a growing, developing, responsible, and capable future employee in the health care field.
What Do Healthcare Employers Look For in a Resume?
Before updating your resume, think about what healthcare employers value most. Hospitals, clinics, long-term care facilities, and community health organizations are not only looking for technical skills. They are looking for people who can be trusted in fast-moving and emotional environments.
When looking at a resume, health care employers do not only look at a candidate’s education and degrees. They also look at their past experiences. Experiences where the candidate demonstrated responsibility, communication skills, patient care, and professionalism are most ideal for a health care resume. Therefore, before one begins to list their past experiences, one must realize whether they were positive or not and whether or not they helped the candidate grow as a person and prepare for their future in health care.
Nursing also requires proper training and clinical preparation, so it’s important to look closely at the programs available to you before choosing a path. A strong program should help you build the knowledge, confidence, and hands-on experience needed to enter the healthcare workforce. If you’re based in the area, comparing nursing colleges in Houston can be a helpful starting point as you review program structure, clinical opportunities, lab experiences, and the kind of support each school offers nursing students.
Your resume becomes stronger when your education path, skills, and career goals all point in the same direction.
Start With a Clear Professional Summary
The very top of your resume is referred to as the “Professional Summary” or sometimes an “Objective” (which I never, ever recommend), and this section needs to grab the hiring manager’s attention within seconds of reading your resume. Because they are reviewing the resumes of entry-level candidates for hours on end, they are looking for a way to quickly determine whether or not you are qualified to move on to the next round of interviews. As an example, here is my Professional Summary as a nursing student with some customer service experience:
In order to gain the attention of a healthcare employer with your resume, you must have a strong resume, particularly a healthcare resume. A good healthcare resume will outline all of the different education, skills, and experiences that you can bring to the healthcare industry and in particular to a specific workplace. As a nursing student, you must develop a resume that highlights your capabilities of responsibility, of communication, of patient care, and of being professional in the workplace. This does not mean that as a newly graduated nurse you have not yet gained any experience in healthcare, rather your healthcare resume must illustrate your ability to become a capable and qualified healthcare worker.
For example:
A professional summary, for example: “A compassionate future nurse with customer service experience, great communication skills, and experience with patient care. Organized, level-headed, and able to gain patients’ and their families’ trust from diverse backgrounds and experiences.”
A summary can also work well for those looking to transition to the health care field. The focus can be on past work experiences that show the necessary skills for health care and how they can be used in nursing. A teacher might highlight patience and the ability to communicate with families and patients. An office manager would highlight the ability to document information and to problem-solve. A server or host at a restaurant would highlight the ability to multitask while maintaining energy to deal with demanding customers in a fast-paced environment.
It’s not necessary to pretend to have years of experience as a nurse to have a strong resume as a nursing student or new nurse. Your past experience can be very valuable if it has prepared you for learning to care for people and to work in health care. Show the employer how your past work has prepared you for this career.
Highlight Education and Clinical Preparation
Of most importance to new nurses and nursing students is highlighting their education on their resume. Most education is listed at the top of the resume, and for most nursing jobs, the degree that they are looking for in applicants is directly related to the program or degree that the applicant is currently completing.
In your education section include your school name, your degree or program name, your expected graduation date, and any relevant academic achievements such as any academic papers or honors that you have received. In your clinical preparation list all of the different settings that you have experienced, including inpatient and outpatient settings as well as different specialties and areas within a healthcare facility. Include descriptions of the different patient populations and situations that you have encountered as well as your level of participation in patient care, any responsibility that you have been given, any leadership roles that you have taken on, and any accomplishments or growth that you have achieved during your clinical experience.
Clinical experience: Just because you have been participating in clinicals as part of your nursing education does not mean that you cannot include your clinicals on your resume. Many employers want to see that you have experience in real patient care settings and that you have a good grasp of what it will take to be a good nurse.
Make the descriptions practical for the resume—instead of general statements, include what you saw, practiced, or supported in the clinical environment. This will help show the employer that you have been in health care environments before and know what is expected as a nurse.
For example:
Completed clinical rotation in hospital medical-surgical unit. Assisted in patient assessment, documentation, and care of patients, including vital sign monitoring. Communicated with the rest of the health care team to ensure the best patient care. Under instructor supervision.
Add Certifications, Volunteer Work, and Relevant Skills
Certifications: Add any current certifications that you have received to your resume even if you are applying for an entry-level position in the healthcare industry. Some examples of certifications that could be added to a resume are Basic Life Support, CPR, First Aid, Certified Nursing Assistant, or medical terminology.
Volunteer work helps to create a strong healthcare resume as well. Even though it is called a “healthcare resume”, it does not have to be created only of experiences from healthcare. Volunteer work at a hospital, senior center, school, or non-profit organization where patients or clients are served helps to create a strong resume. Volunteer work shows that one has compassion, is serving others, is consistent, and is comfortable with different kinds of people.
Also be sure to list out your skills and make sure that they are relevant and listed honestly. These could include patient communication, documentation, awareness of infection control, teamwork, time management, and many other skills.
Ensure that your resume is very consistent throughout the entire document from the very top to the very bottom.
Keep the Format of Your Resume Clean and Simple and Easy to Read
Healthcare hiring managers are busy. Your resume should be simple, organized, and easy to read. Use clear headings, consistent spacing, and concise bullet points. Avoid unusual fonts, heavy design elements, or long paragraphs.
Check for spelling errors, incorrect dates, and inconsistent formatting. In health care, you never know when something is going to be scrutinized. Your resume should look professional to give the healthcare employer the first impression that you are competent and able to provide high-quality patient care.
Final Thoughts
Your resume before your first job as a nurse is meant to show your readiness as a future healthcare provider. It does not have to convey experience that you do not have.
Your education, the clinical experience you have had, your volunteer work, any certifications you have, and your previous jobs are all valuable to highlight on your resume, particularly if they demonstrate your dependability, thoughtfulness, teachability, and potential as a future health care worker.
